A terrifying experience for passengers on AirAsia flight travelling from the Gold Coast to Malaysia, when the plane was forced to make an emergency landing at Brisbane airport shortly after take off.

Flight D7207 left the Gold Coast bound for Kuala Lumpur on Monday night but was forced to land a short time later due to a suspected birdstrike.

Several passengers say the plane’s right engine appeared to ‘explode’ or catch on fire. “Successive sparks boom boom boom went off and some people were crying and calling out ‘oh my god oh my god'”, Passenger Eric Lim posted on Facebook. “That was quite an experience seeing the engine on fire,” another passenger added.

AirAsia says a suspected bird strike caused the emergency, with all 345 passengers and 14 crew on board uninjured.

“We would like to commend our pilot and crew members for their professionalism and swift action to reassure passengers… and to land the aircraft safely,” Chief executive AirAsia X CEO Benjamin Ismail said.

Early last week, another AirAsia plane was forced to make an emergency landing at Perth Airport after an engine malfunctioned 90 minutes into the flight to Kuala Lumpur.

That flight, D7237 with 359 people on board, on June 28 landed safely and investigations are continuing.